Application Instructions

(Note: Applications for the Spring 2024 Environmental Humanities grant cycle are now closed.)

Projects 

We invite your creativity and passion. Applicants are encouraged to work in any medium they choose, and to approach the environmental humanities in diverse and innovative ways. Projects awarded funding in the 2024 grant cycle must be completed between March 1, 2024, and May 31, 2025. This may include the summer months of 2024.

Projects may be entirely new endeavors, or may be distinctive initiatives that supplement ongoing activities. Activities may take place on or off the Yale campus, however all activities should be envisioned with a wider public audience in mind.

Possible projects include, but are not limited to: 

  • Podcast/radio episode or show
  • Video web series

  • Documentary project

  • Collaborative efforts with community-based organizations 

  • Interactive websites or web interfaces

  • Art installations

  • Engagement with poetry/literature

  • Curation of museum, gallery, or library exhibit

  • Lecture/Discussion events (excluding routine campus speakers)

  • Mobile applications

  • Project or workshop series/collaboration with educational institutions or organizations 

Some important aspects to consider when planning the project proposal are: the audience that the project will reach; the sustainability and longevity of the project (if it will continue in the future, and how); and, the gap in current Environmental/Public Humanities at Yale or in New Haven that their project will fill. Applicants are encouraged to think big when planning their projects. 

 

We envision that projects accepted in the 2024 grant cycle will be completed no later than May 2025. 

Eligibility 

Students at any level (undergraduate, master’s degree, professional, and doctoral students), as well as faculty and eligible staff, are invited to propose a project. Applicants may work individually or in teams. Students need not have a faculty supervisor (although they can if the grant is being used to support a capstone or other project that requires one). Collaboration among students and faculty at all levels is highly encouraged.

Responsibilities

In addition to the completion of the proposed project, grant recipients will be expected to showcase their projects and discuss their experiences at an Environmental Humanities event in the 2024-2025 academic year (date TBD). Grant recipients also will be expected to provide a written report or summary that can be featured on the Environmental Humanities website. 

Review Committee 

Application and project proposals will be considered by a review committee appointed by the Yale Environmental Humanities Steering Committee, made up of faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and doctoral students associated with the Yale Environmental Humanities Program. Members of the project review committee are not eligible to propose a project.

Selection Criteria

The review committee will consider the following criteria while judging a project

  • Personal Development and Commitment –skills developed, connection between project and personal development objectives of applicant(s)
  • Environmental and Social Impact – potential of the project to have a meaningful impact within the Yale, New Haven, local/international community in which applicant lives and/or works, or on the broader public; relevance of project to environmental and/or social issue in the community
  • Innovation – freshness of approach or ideas; potential to serve as a model for others
  • Feasibility– feasibility of goals, timeline, and budget; potential longevity of the project
  • Collaboration – collaboration among multiple members of the Yale and/or New Haven community; ability of project to engage other members of the local/international community in which the applicant lives and/or works; accessibility of project to a wider public 
  • Diversity – connections to diverse groups/communities, awareness of and/or action to address historical social and political inequities

For full consideration, please submit your proposal online via the application webform by Friday, February 9, 2024 at 5:00pm.* Decisions will be made and announced by the end of February. Please feel free to send any questions to environmentalhumanities@yale.edu

Application Form (Word document will download)

*Please note that you will have to sign in using a google account to access the application webform.